Tollways and tollbooths, such as are commonly used on turnpike highways and other toll roads, are used to collect tolls to pay for road maintenance and other costs associated with the toll road. While in the past, and to some extent it is still the case, drivers were forced to stop and pay with currency at each toll plaza, it is increasingly common to use electronic toll collection that allows drivers to simply drive through a toll plaza at ordinary speed. In some automated toll systems, a radio transponder, that can be active or passive, and is located in the vehicle, is read by a radio signal as the vehicle passes under a gantry in a toll plaza. The toll plazas are often operated by a toll agency, which may be a private agency or a government agency. Some examples of toll agencies include SunPass and EZ-Pass. The transponder, typically being mounted in a vehicle, allows for little flexibility when one changes vehicles or is using a rental car. A transponder also lacks the ability to be secured so as to prevent toll fraud or allow tolls in case the vehicle (or transponder) is stolen.
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) released an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Strategic Research Plan for 2010-2014 at the end of 2009. The ITS (its.dot.gov) website discloses the plan as assuming government investment of upwards of $100 million per year for five years. The tolling industry handles its customer base in a somewhat parochial way. In actuality, anyone using public roadways may be seen as a customer. Each tolling facility tracks customers for data such as account information, volume and frequency of trips and where these customers reside. However, the existing agencies do little to incentivize customers to increase user usage of toll agency services. Marketing and rewards programs are rarely used. Therefore, toll agencies focus on reducing costs while increasing reliability of technology solutions (such as ISO 18000 6C reader tag protocol for interoperability), greater efficiencies in logging individuals highway use, and better quality imaging technologies (such as high-definition), to collect delinquent fees from toll evaders, are seeking improved systems.
Current toll options include REID Tags and Readers, and Transponders used by Toll Companies like EZPass and SunPass, from providers such as Kapsch lack interoperability. The US government issued a mandate for interoperability among various state tolling systems by 2016, accompanied by a plan to distribute and share revenues between the plethora of companies and agencies. A less-desirable default option has been the Toll-by-Plate system, where, rather than having a transponder, the gantry at a toll plaza captures an image of the vehicle's license plate and charges the toll to the owner or registered user associated with the license plate number. However, this system is not sufficiently accurate nor convenient; visibility may often be obscured with obstacles, highway gridlock, and weather, and costs are typically higher than with a more targeted system. Customers unaware of the Toll-by-Plate operation who have not established an account with the agency will typically be charged somewhat punitive charges in addition to the toll.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for an automated tolling system that provide the toll account owner more flexibility and security in tolling, and which preserves the accuracy and reliability of conventional automated tolling systems.